Hey everyone!
Another monthly update from me for January. After a quiet December, I tried to pick up as much flying as I could in January. Luckily I managed to pick up a decent amount of OT. Despite this, I lost some flying from both displacements for IOE and due to misconnects/cancellations, which made calculating my credited time pretty difficult (so just consider it an estimate!). I stacked the front and backend of the month to have some time off with friends. Then a displacement for IOE added to my stretch of days off, which was nice!
It was a good month for learning and new experiences. Lots of deicing and anti-icing throughout the month, which was a good first experience for me. We also had our one snow day of the year and a week of below freezing temperatures in Dallas. Which was then followed by a couple of days of strong crosswinds that caused DFW to go to a rare diagonal 2 runway operation. On the morning of the snow in Dallas, our plane was pulled from the maintenance hanger in ABI just before our flight, and because it was so cold (about 10° F), some water that had pooled in the base of the engine nacelle froze the turbine blades almost instantly, which caused a pretty significant delay. What was supposed to be a 50 minute flight turned into a 6 hour ordeal (on go home day, of course!). It was certainly interesting sitting in the small terminal having to explain the reason for the delay to the passengers. Once we did finally arrive at DFW, we had a significant wait for a gate due to 120-180 minute deicing times. A huge credit to our ramp controllers and operations personnel who dealt with non-stop calls from aircraft that morning for gates/deicing. It did make me appreciate how smoothly DFW runs on a normal day!
Another good month and I was glad to get back to consistent flying again. Our seniority numbers were updated at the beginning of the year and I was surprised to see how many new pilots have been hired behind me already. I’m about one-third of the way up the list in just over a year. And with several aircraft orders for 2024 and the spring/summer travel season coming up, it seems like the company is planning for lots of upcoming flying. I’m looking forward to another busy month in February!
Here was my schedule for the month of January:
Originally Awarded
Block: 69.16
Credit: 74.48
Days Off: 13
Actual
Monthly Flight time: 72.19
Credited time: 96.18 (77.19+ 18.59 hours OT)
Nights away from base: 12
Days off: 12
1 - DFW-ABI-DFW-LIT (DH)
2 - LIT-CLT-HHH-CLT-TRI (DH)
3 - TRI-DFW-BIL
4 - BIL-DFW / DFW-FAR (OT)
5 - FAR-ORD (OT) ORD-DFW (DH)(OT)
6 - OFF
7 - DFW-VPS-DFW-SGF
8 - SGF-DFW **(DFW-SGF-DFW-LBB All cancelled due to weather)
9 - DFW-BMI
10 - BMI-DFW
11 - OFF
12 - DFW-HRL
13 - HRL-DFW-LRD-DFW-BPT
14 - BPT-DFW-BRO-DFW-ABI
15 - ABI-DFW ***(DFW-HSV-DFW cancelled due to weather)
16 - OFF
17 - OFF
18 - OFF
19 - OFF
20 - OFF
21 - OFF
22 - OFF
23 - OFF
24 - OFF (DISPLACED)
25 - (mostly DISPLACED) DFW-XNA
26 - XNA-DFW-LBB-DFW
27 - DFW-ELP-DFW / DFW-MHK (OT)
28 - MHK-DFW-ELP-DFW (ALL OT)
29 - OFF
30 - DFW-SGF-DFW-ABI
31- ABI-DFW-HRL-DFW-MLI
See you all next month!
Roscoe
